Now one viral tweet has perfectly captured how many women are feeling about the excuses of those accused of misconduct.

It’s an issue that disproportionately affects women, and much of the last few weeks’ coverage has seen high-profile men taken to task and being forced to apologise, either for their own past behaviour or for not doing anything about behaviour they witnessed from others.

Prompted by the apology of Mark Halperin, a former NBC News journalist accused of sexual harassment by several women, Harding wrote, “I am sorry for all the times I stabbed men, just a little, in my previous workplace. After years of counseling, I stopped stabbing men.”

In a statement posted on Twitter, Halperin had said he felt “profound guilt” and that he’d had weekly counselling to address the causes of his “inappropriate manner”. Since then, according to Halperin, his conduct at work had been “very different” and he would be “spending time with family and friends, as I work to make amends and contributions both large and small.”

Harding’s tweet, perfectly skewering Halperin’s statement while being applicable to many of the apologies doing the rounds at the moment, quickly gained momentum, with almost 80,000 likes and 25,000 retweets at time of writing – as well as hundreds of incredible replies.

Some focused on the fallback of era, writing, “In the 90s, everyone was stabbing men”, “It was a different time” and “I’m not saying it’s good or bad, but it was the Bobbitt age.”

“In the 90s, everyone was stabbing men, or chopping off their body parts. I understand now that this was wrong, but it explains the context”

While funny, the thread illustrates the many and varied ways that sexual harassment and assault has become so rife and accepted in society – by reversing the sexes, it highlights just how indefensible such attitudes are.

If you have been sexually assaulted or raped, contact Rape Crisis for information, advice and support.

Image: Larm Rmah

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Amy Swales

Amy Swales is a freelance writer who likes to eat, drink and talk about her dog. She will continue to plunder her own life and the lives of her loved ones for material in the name of comedy, catharsis and getting pictures of her dog on the internet.